social groups and religious organisations

Question 1

miller and hoffman - gender

Answer 1

despite a recent drift away from mainstream christianity, studies have consistently shown that women are more religious than men.
miller and hoffman report that women:
• are more likely to express a greater interest religion
• have a stronger personal relationship commitment
• attend church more often

Question 2

women’s church attendance - Brierley

Answer 2

• during the last 20 years or so women have begun to leave the church at a faster rate than men.
• brierly From 1998 to 2005 women were leaving churches at about twice the rate of men.

Question 3

reasons for women’s decline in church attendance - Aune et al

Answer 3

Aune et al cite a number of reasons for the decline in church attendance:
• Fertility levels - Women have fewer children and so the older generation lost from the church is not being replaced.
• Feminist values - Feminist values began influencing women in the 60s & 70s, challenging traditional Christian views about women’s roles and raising women’s aspirations.
• Paid employment - two-thirds of women are in the labour market. Juggling employment, childcare and housework causes time pressures.
• Family diversity - churches include fewer non-traditional families. Family forms which are growing, such as singleness, lone-parent families and cohabitation, are underprovided for and even discouraged by churches.
• Sexuality - The church’s ambivalence towards sexuality is driving women to leave, feeling that the church requires them to deny or be silent about sexual desire and activity.

Question 4

greater religious orientation among women - Greeley (1992).

Answer 4

• He argues that before women acquire a partner and have children, their religiosity is not dissimilar to men’s (although slightly more committed).
• However, once you start “taking care” of people, you begin implicitly to assume greater responsibility for their “ultimate” welfare’.
• caring, tends to be associated with a more religious outlook

Question 5

greater religious orientation among women - miller and hoffmann (1995)

Answer 5

identify two main explanations for such gender differences:
• Differential socialization - Females are taught to be more submissive and obedient than males. Such characteristics are highly compatible with and esteemed by most religions. Also, men who internalize these norms tend to be more religious than men who do not.

• Differential roles - Females have lower rates of participation in paid work and this, gives women not only more time for church-related activities, but also a greater need for religion as a source of personal identity and commitment. They also have higher rates of participation in child-rearing, which in turn increases religiosity because it coincides with a concern for family wellbeing.

Question 6

roles and religious orientation (women) - woodhead

Answer 6

changes in women’s roles are having an impact on their religious orientation.
Woodhead attempts to explain the diversity of responses, she divides contemporary women into three groups:
• Home-centred women = traditionally Christian because Christianity affirms their priority’s
• Jugglers = combine home and work. likely in alternative spirituality, as they do the most to help women who are negotiating private/public boundaries, affirming commitments to home and endorsing female empowerment.
• Work-centred women = abandon the church as it does not fit with their demanding work schedules

Question 7

Women and sects - Thompson

Answer 7

• Women tend to participate more in sects than men.
• Women are more likely to experience poverty Thompson (1996) notes: ‘They may not have the economic and social standing of others in society, but sect members have the promise of salvation and the knowledge that they are enlightened.’

Question 8

women and new age movements - Glock & Stark

Answer 8

• woman suffer higher deprivation so turn to religion for comfort
• NAM celebrate women, freedom to express feminine side, nurturing and caring
• away from patriarchal society

Question 9

women and new age movements - Brown & Woodhead

Answer 9

NAM provide a more freeing alternative to conservative traditional religions, helping them to escape conventional social roles and find freedom and independence

Question 10

community identity - Davie

Answer 10

• suggests that higher levels of religiosity in minority ethnic groups may be a means of maintaining tradition, group cohesion and community solidarity. Links this to other aspects of identity such as art, marriage, cooking, diet, dress and language.
• Mosques and Sikh temples, for example, are community centres as well as places of worship.

Question 11

cultural defence - Bruce

Answer 11

• suggests that higher religiosity among minority ethnic groups may not be a sign of greater religious commitment but more an assertion of identity and cohesion.
• This is know as a cultural defence of a culture that may be under threat for people away from their own countries.
• Religion can act as a sense of identity, self-esteem and support during times of transition.

Question 12

Social deprivation, marginality and status frustration - Bird

Answer 12

• People may turn to religion as a solid source of identity, status and community, which they find lacking in mainstream society.
• Bird - many anglian churches in the 50s were largely white and did not welcome those from other cultures. In reaction to this perceived racism, many african-caribbean christian’s set up their own church. This may partly explain the rapid rise of the pentecostal movement in the uk.

Question 13

Theodicy of disprivilege - Weber

Answer 13

claims that for groups such as sects offer threatening of disprivledge which is a method for justifying their suffering through religious belief
eg you are poor because God has intended this for you

Question 14

compensators - stark and bainbridge

Answer 14

• Religion provides compensators. When rewards are scarce or unobtainable,
  religion compensates with supernatural ones. eg immorality is unobtainable so religion compensates with life after death.
• No worldly rewards can compare with compensators.

Question 15

middle class participation - voas and Watt

Answer 15

• found that the middle class attends church more than working class people in the uk. they based this conclusion on their findings on the CofE:
• more people go to church in rural areas of England
• people attend church in higher numbers in south england than north england

Question 16

new age cults (class) - bruce

Answer 16

• argued that Spiritual growth appeals mainly to those whose more pressing material needs have been satisfied.
• Unmarried mothers raising children on welfare tend to be too concerned with finding food and heat and when they do look for release from troubles they prefer bars and clubs.

Question 17

The virtual collapse of religious socialisation
- Arweck and Beckford

Answer 17

• it is increasingly unlikely for parents to pass on their religious beliefs to their children.
• Also, traditional Sunday Schools, which used to be widespread are now rare and so churches cannot recruit from them.

Voas (2003) suggests that there is only a 25 per cent chance that a child raised in these circumstances will become a regular churchgoer as an adult,

Question 18

church is boring - brierly

Answer 18

•found that 87% of 10-14-year-olds claimed that church was boring and old fashioned.
• They felt that the traditional teachings didn’t relate to their lives and so they avoided attending church if they could.

Question 19

individualism - bruce

Answer 19

• ‘individualisation’ → not centre of our lives anymore.
• Religion no longer exerts the same control over communities
• E.g. religious teachings are no longer imposed upon society as they would have been when ‘the church’ was the dominant institution and central to social activity.
• Being religious is now something that is left to individual choice in the UK.

Question 20

Voas and Crockett (2003) suggest that there are two different explanations behind the elderly’s creased participation in religion.

Answer 20

• The ageing effect - as people come closer to the end of their life, their interest in spirituality and religion increases. This may be due to a growing concern about the afterlife, or a desire to seek forgiveness for past sins

• The generational or period effect - the current elderly generation may be more religious due to their upbringing, which was less secure than that experienced by today’s youth. They were more likely to suffer from poverty and lived through the Second World War.